A former picky eater discovering healthy living through eating clean and running.

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Juice Cleanse, Day 1

I woke up the morning of Day 1 with a slight headache from the few glasses of red wine I had the night before (dumb idea, I know).

At least I took some initiative of what I ate and drank pre-cleanse. I did some research that recommended cutting back on coffee, chocolate, and avoiding grains in order to prep your body for the juice cleanse. I drank a smaller cup of coffee than usual on Friday, and didn’t have an coffee on Saturday. Saturday I ate healthily – a smoothie, eggs for dinner, etc.

The BluePrint cleanse I’m following consists of 6 juices a day that you drink about every two hours.

Green Juice

P.A.M.

Green Juice

Spicy Lemonade

C.A.B.

Nut Milk

I’ll outline the recipes for all of juices as the days progress!

I’m so glad I got to do the first day on a weekend day (Sunday) because I totally would not have survived through work

Even though I was excited to start the juice cleanse, I really wanted some FOOD. But once I drank my first Green Juice, my stomach did feel full.

Here’s what’s in the Green Juice:

Since I was jacking the ingredients from BluePrint, I didn’t have the exact recipe, but the juice I ended up with was pretty good! Those measurements are:

1/2 cucumber

2-4 celery stalks

1/2 lemon

1 handful parsley

1-2 small heads of romaine

1-2 small heads of spinach

6 large kale leaves

top off with filtered water

That makes approximately 16 oz. of juice, which is suggested amount for each of the juices in the cleanse. It’s perfect – regular sized mason jars are exactly 16 ounces!

I found it helpful to drink the juices slowwwwly [think 30-40 minutes], which made me feel less deprived and kept my stomach feeling okay. I also drank A LOT of herbal tea – about 1 in between each of the juices. After drinking so many cold juices, all I wanted was something warm!

By far, the worst thing about Day 1 was the bad headache I had all day. I’m pretty sure this was due to caffeine withdrawal, but I’m not positive. There was a lot of massaging my temples going on. I even refrained from watching Real Housewives because I absolutely could not deal with any raised voices or yelling. #juicecleanseproblems

In addition to the headache, I felt tired, had low energy, and kept sweating. It almost felt like I was sick! I was pretty miserable, but wasn’t hungry – even though I missed eating…and chewing.

Despite all of this, I was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t feel dizzy and did not feel the need to eat any solid food add-ins. I’ve been carrying around an avocado, banana, and some pecans just in case of emergency.

I literally googled: “What to do if lightheaded during juice cleanse?” before I started, because I was anemic in high school and fear fainting. THIS article warned me, “Light headedness to the point of fainting puts you at serious risk for injury.” Point taken. I’m taking a slow-releasing iron pill and am doing just fine so far.

Plus, during the juice cleanse, I’ve been listening to my body like whoa. I’m hyper-aware of everything I’m feeling because I want to make sure I stay safe!

As the afternoon continued, I started to feel a lot of doubt, wondering if this was the right thing to put my body through. I was poking around my bookshelf, and saw I had a book on juicing that I’ve never even looked at! It came at just the right time, because it helped me validate why I’m doing this.

I fell asleep thinking of pizza and Mexican food (legit images of the cheesy goodness in my head) and crossing my fingers that Day 2 would be easier.